


And up until now/I had sworn to myself that I'm content/With loneliness

by Neyiea



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Episode: s05e07 Ace Chemicals, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: They linger in the kitchen and the conversation extends.There are truths that Bruce does not want to hear, but Jeremiah can no longer keep them silent.
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 11
Kudos: 143





	And up until now/I had sworn to myself that I'm content/With loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> I've written a lot of soft Wayleska lately, which is wonderful don't get me wrong, but I still really, really love these two as they are in canon even if it occasionally hurts my heart. 
> 
> Someday I'm just going to have to make myself a Batjokes playlist with all the songs I keep using as titles, speaking of:
> 
> The Only Exception, by Paramore.

“But I’ve realized if we can’t be friends, then we can be connected in other ways.”

Bruce looks at him, unflinching, backlit by the golden light of sunset streaming in through the kitchen windows. He looks so brave, so beautiful. Jeremiah is reminded, suddenly and dizzily, of the moment his life had been upended by the boy sitting beside him, who was so resolute in his quest to stand up against terror. Jeremiah is reminded, suddenly and dizzily, just how much he _wanted_ Bruce as a friend. Back then. Now. Always. 

“How?”

Jeremiah feels his lips twitch, smile widening. “You’ll see,” he vows, and the smile fades. “In time.”

All of the greatest plans took time to execute, and they often took too much of it.

Jeremiah hopes that his waiting is mostly over. Soon he and Bruce would be connected, and maybe their relationship would never be the same as it was back when he was pretending to be someone that he wasn’t, but Jeremiah has made his mark by embracing change. 

Not all changes were bad.

Not all friendships were conventional. 

Bruce’s gaze is hard to read, even though Jeremiah now prides himself on knowing Bruce better than any other living person. After a time his eyes settle back down on the table where his favourite food, lovingly prepared by his favourite butler, is going cold. 

Jeremiah aches at the loss of contact. Jeremiah wishes he’d seen the emotions filter across Bruce’s face as he looked upon the one made up to be his mother while the pearls were clasped around her neck. Jeremiah wishes Bruce could acknowledge, right now, that not everything was lost.

Despite what would happen tonight he would always have Jeremiah.

Bruce doesn’t understand it all, not quite yet. Jeremiah has kept so many secrets in preparation for this special anniversary, but he deserves to know everything sooner or later, regardless. 

Jeremiah wants Bruce to look at him again, just once more, before he has to go.

“All that I have done has been for you, Bruce.”

Bruce is silent for a long moment before his gaze lifts up, not to look at Jeremiah, but to fall upon the puppets that Jeremiah had oh so carefully chosen to play the role of his parents.

“How can you say that?” He finally asks. His voice is weak, and Jeremiah is almost overcome with a heady longing to gently rest a hand upon his cheek and make him look where his gaze is supposed to be. An emotional link between Bruce and the people that he knew weren’t actually his parents was important for the night’s plan, though, so he manages to control the urge.

It was so hard to stop from touching him, though, now that they were within easy distance of each other again after too many months apart. They had been so close when frustration had overcome Jeremiah and he’d fisted a hand in Bruce’s jacket, but that didn’t count. That wasn’t what Jeremiah had wanted. That wasn’t what Bruce deserved. 

“Because it’s the truth,” Jeremiah answers earnestly. Surely Bruce realized this by now. Surely Bruce was beginning to understand everything. Bruce was too clever to play at ignorance.

“You hurt Alfred, and Selina, and me.”

“I know.” And he will not apologize for it. His blunt answer is enough for Bruce to look at him again, and Jeremiah’s heart thunders at the weight of his attention even though his brows are furrowed and his lips are pursed into a thin, unforgiving line. “But not out of cruelty, never that.” Bruce must know this. Bruce has to know this. Jeremiah will remind him again and again until it is impossible to forget. “Only out of friendship and a desire for you, like myself, to reach your full potential. Can’t you see that?”

“No,” Bruce tells him. His voice is flat, but his eyes are anything but. It almost hurts to look at him, but Jeremiah cannot turn his gaze away. He could never turn his gaze away. “You pretended to be my friend,” he accuses. “You pretended to care about me, but it was a lie all along. Everything you’ve ever told me was a lie.”

“No,” Jeremiah snaps. Bruce flinches at his tone, and Jeremiah tries to seem gentler. “No, no,” he repeats, soft but insistent. Bruce cannot believe that. He’s hurting, and he’s lashing out, but Jeremiah won’t let him say lies like they’re truths. “I am your friend, Bruce,” he vows, despite what he had said mere minutes before. The only thing that kept them from being friends was Bruce’s stubborn nature, and if friendship was what Bruce desired then Jeremiah would happily offer it to him along with the new, unbreakable connection that he was already forging between them. “And I do care about you. So much, Bruce. I have thought of you every day that we’ve been parted. I have worked tirelessly to make sure my tunnel was completed on time. I have gone over every detail of this day in an attempt to make it _perfect_. I am going to become the most important person in your life.”

“How?”

By making sure that he was the man who Bruce thought about when he closed his eyes at night. By making sure he was the man who haunted Bruce in his waking moments just as much as in his dreams. By making sure that Bruce’s head was filled with thoughts of him, and him alone.

“I told you before. _You’ll see_ ,” he promises fervently. “Oh, Bruce. I’ve missed you so much.” The words spill into the air between them, and Jeremiah cannot seem to stop. His heart is racing. He wants to hold Bruce’s hands. He wants to watch him shatter as his parents die in front of him all over again. He wants to kiss him. He wants to claim him. He wants to see Bruce reach his true, breathtaking potential. “You know why, don’t you? You know what was building between us, back before we tested my first bomb.”

Bruce’s expression shutters abruptly. Jeremiah’s fingers twitch.

“Stop.”

“I know what was happening. I am not ashamed of it, Bruce. Who could be ashamed of such a marvelous thing?” His desire to reach out is becoming harder to ignore. He’s missed Bruce for months. He’s wanted Bruce for months. He’s been aching and alone for months. 

Just being near Bruce again; hearing his voice, breathing his air, so close that he could just reach out and touch whenever he wanted—it’s intoxicating after so long of nothing but dreams and memories to sustain him. 

He is starved for the real thing.

“I know myself better now than I ever did, Bruce.” His heart is racing even faster, now. “And I know that I lo—”

“Don’t say it,” Bruce urges, sounding nearly breathless. “If you ever actually cared about me, don’t say it.”

“I love you,” Jeremiah tells him in a rush. How could he hold such a wonderful truth back from the person who he cares about so much? Love was not meant to be kept a secret to oneself. 

Bruce closes his eyes, as if in pain.

“I love you,” Jeremiah repeats, because Bruce will understand, eventually, and Bruce will know just how genuine Jeremiah is being, and Bruce will finally allow himself to love Jeremiah back without shame, without fear, without the self-loathing that he was so fond of carrying around him like a shroud. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything.”

“Please, stop.”

“I can’t,” Jeremiah tells him, and he finally gives in to the urge to reach out. Their gloves keep bare skin from brushing, which is irritating, and Bruce snatches his hand back, holding it against his chest as if the touch had burned him, which _hurts_. “You deserve to be told it every day, Bruce. I have months to make up for.”

Bruce makes a hollow, bitter sound low in his throat. His eyes are still closed. He’s trying to put a barrier between himself and Jeremiah, but Jeremiah will not allow him to do that.

He reaches forward with both hands, grabbing onto Bruce’s shoulders tightly. 

“Look at me,” he demands, but Bruce keeps his eyes closed.

Jeremiah will just have to _make_ Bruce acknowledge him. 

“Leave us, you know where to go,” he commands, and the three hypnotized adults in the room easily follow the order. Bruce’s eyes open and linger upon them as they leave.

He looks so sad.

He’ll look even sadder when they’re dead.

Jeremiah grabs onto his face, fingers digging into his cheeks. Bruce stares upwards, cruelling not meeting Jeremiah’s eyes, but soon he will not be able to look away from Jeremiah.

Soon Jeremiah will be all that he sees.

And Jeremiah will kiss the tear tracks on his cheeks and swallow his sobs and hold him close and won’t let him go. Jeremiah should have never let Bruce go. Should have held onto him like the precious, remarkable, beautiful sweetheart that he is. Should have made sure they weren’t parted after the bridges had blown up.

But they had been torn apart, and Bruce has been without him just as much as he has been without Bruce. A cruel fate. An awful fate. A fate that Jeremiah was going to put an end to.

“I would do anything for you, Bruce, because I love you more than anything.”

“I don’t believe you,” Bruce whispers. 

Jeremiah can feel his heart fracture, aching and raw and too vulnerable, now, considering how powerful he has become. Only Bruce could reduce him to this. Only Bruce could get away with saying such an awful thing.

“You will. I’ll show you.”

“Jeremiah,” Bruce’s voice cracks. He’s weak in this moment, too. They are both splintering to pieces, overcome by the emotions brought forth by reuniting after being parted for so long, but soon they will be stronger than before, soon they will have each other.

Soon they will belong to each other. Soon Bruce’s thoughts will cycle endlessly about Jeremiah just as Jeremiah’s thoughts cycle endlessly about him.

“You were my friend.”

“And I always will be,” Jeremiah promises him with all the love in his heart.

But they will become more, too. 

He leans in, unable to help himself, and presses their lips together. Brief and chaste as it may be, it sparks a fire under his skin all the same.

“Always,” he vows, lips brushing against Bruce’s slack, unresponsive mouth.

Bruce is trembling as he backs away, and if Jeremiah did not have a schedule to keep he would have held him—kissed him again, wound a hand into his hair, gotten his bare hands on bare skin and shown Bruce just how fervently Jeremiah adored him and just how ardently he had missed him—but tonight has to be perfect.

“Your parents and I have a date with destiny,” he says as he goes. Bruce calls his name, voice harsh, and it sends a pleasant shock down his spine. “You might want to find a faithful butler and leave.” He flips a switch, and the bombs start their countdown. “Quickly.”

He goes, but he knows that Bruce will follow.

He goes, but they’ll be together again soon.

And this time Jeremiah will not let Bruce slip from between his fingers.

This time nothing will be able to come between them.


End file.
